When you live in Maine, you don’t eat a lot of rice growing upNew Maine Potato Pickers.on a potato farm in Aroostook County.
Nothing wrong with rice, but with potatoes all around you on the Maine farm, its just a big part of most meals.
This year the day after day of sunshine from spring planting through out summer cultivating, hoeing, spraying had some concerned about the effect on the yield, quality of Maine potatoes. This season with roughly 85% of the crop out of the field, in the bin or on the way to the fresh market, Maine’s potato farmers report success. Hurricane Earl and local potato field irrigation pond water relief to parched spuds made all the difference in the spud season finish.
Between 1928 and 1958, Aroostook County alone produced more potatoes than any state in the nation. But the eating habits, methods in raising spuds have changed. In 1960, my dad a potato farmer told me 50,000 railroad cars of Maine potatoes were annually shipped out of Aroostook County. But then trailer trucks and overnight service kicked in with the “just in time inventory” business practice model adoption.
